#1989-fatwa

#1989-fatwa

Pharmacists have noted a spike in the price of medicines and contraceptives like condoms, as a result of the war. In the United Kingdom, pharmacies are charging 20 to 30 percent more for over-the-counter medicines, and the common painkiller paracetamol has more than quadrupled in price.

Pahlavi pledged to lead a transition to a 'free and democratic Iran.' He called on President Trump to continue the American-Israeli military operation against Iran, in the hope of displacing a regime he decried for placing a 'sea of blood' between itself and its people.

"The essence of oligarchical rule," George Orwell wrote in 1984, "is the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life, imposed by the dead upon the living." For nearly four decades, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei presided over exactly that. He did not build the Islamic Republic of Iran. He inherited it from its founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who in 1979 led a revolution that deposed a U.S.-aligned monarchy and replaced it with an Islamist theocracy.

For us who lived under the siege of the Iranian-backed militias, this looks completely different, so our happiness for the death of Khamenei was immense. Western audiences and policy makers naturally take greater interest in Western victims and the threats Iran poses to the West. However, the imbalance of power between Iran and the West means that Iran has caused relatively limited harm to Western interests since its 1979 revolution.

The Shia cleric especially admires Victor Hugo. He has called Les Miserables the best novel ever written: a miracle; a book of history, criticism, love, and feeling. Its protagonist, Jean Valjean, returns to the righteous path thanks to the forgiveness and compassion of a religious figure: Bishop Myriel. Les Miserables is a tale of piety and redemption.

Iran, the officials say, was prepared for this conflict. The command structures built to survive a decapitation strike appear to remain substantially intact, allowing Iranian retaliatory strikes to begin against Israel, Qatar and Bahrain within hours of the initial attacks.

For decades, the son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been a shadowy figure in Iranian politics, rarely seen in public and almost never heard speaking. He has never given interviews, has held no elected office and appears publicly only on rare ceremonial occasions. Even among political insiders, knowledge of his views is fragmentary.

Tehran rallies feature imagery of Iranian missiles and drones from last year's conflict with Israel. Iranians have commemorated the 47th anniversary of the Islamic revolution with mass rallies nationwide. Crowds flooded Tehran and other cities on Wednesday to celebrate the Islamic Republic's establishment and show solidarity with the government during one of the most tumultuous periods in Iran's recent history.

In Iran today, the central question is not who will replace Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, but rather who is best positioned to decide how that transition would be managed. The question matters because, in the Islamic Republic, such a transition would not only be a constitutional issue. Above all, it would be a test of cohesion among institutions, factions, and security apparatuses.